Anne Frank Play Focuses On ‘Assault’ — Doesn’t Mention Jews Or Nazis
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — A play that ignores Anne Frank’s Jewish identity and features an unfounded assault allegation against a Jew who hid with her is generating controversy in the Netherlands.
The play, which is slated to premiere on Nov. 11 in the Netherlands, is set in modern times and mentions neither the Nazis nor why they murdered Anne Frank, the teenage diarist who wrote her world-famous journal while hiding in German-occupied Amsterdam during the Holocaust.
Esther Voet, the editor-in-chief of the Dutch-Jewish weekly NIW and a former leader of the CIDI watchdog on anti-Semitism, condemned the new play as “an unscrupulous falsification of history” in a scathing op-ed published Friday.
Apparently, “that pesky historical context, the one about the persecution of the Jews, that had to be done with already,” she wrote about the play. It is titled “Achter het Huis,” a phrase that means “behind the house.”
Voet singled out a “violent act” that is attributed in the play to Fritz Pfeffer, a Jewish dentist who lived with Anne Frank and her family and died in the Holocaust. At least one draft of the screenplay had him assaulting, possibly in a sexual manner, Margot Frank, Anne Frank’s sister, though there is no proof or an allegation that he had ever assaulted her or any other person.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30